untitled Sonic fanfiction opening scene
by Tailarine
Summary: Wrote this a few weeks ago. It isn't the first fan-fic I've scribbled, but it's the first that I've made public... so "Huzzah!" for a milestone, I guess.    Believe it or not, this isn't meant to be strictly about Knuxouge. It's a much larger picture.


It wasn't vanity that rolled through Knuckles' mind as he examined his reflection in the pond; it was simple appreciation for his arsenal of advantages, both tangible and otherwise.

At some point over the last year, nature had evidently decreed that his body should catch up with his ability. The echidna had, in that time, grown from a lean and wiry youth into a sheer powerhouse. Knuckles liked stamping that word onto himself. _Powerhouse_. Again, vanity wasn't really the inspiration for it. He just enjoyed the idea of housing a benign power inside himself that was always ready to be used when needed.

Truthfully, though, he found that he couldn't come up with any other term to so succinctly describe the collective image of every chiseled groove, honed cord, and sculpted bulge visible on his physique.

Knuckles clenched his left fist. Kind of amazing that such a slight movement could produce such a radical reaction. His forearm expanded more than an inch in circumference as all of the veteran muscles tensed. He swore he could feel friction when the rock-solid strands rubbed against one another, barely contained by the taut skin. And then there was the familiar heat that flared from his elbow to his wrist, complemented by the thin layer of red fur. The crisscrossing veins that boiled up to the surface looked like rivulets of lava streaming down a mountainside.

Ironically—or perhaps fittingly—enough, the past year had been the calmest of Knuckles' life. Gone, it seemed, were the days when every robber, marauder, and invader on the planet saw the Master Emerald as a piece of candy for the taking.

Knuckles knew the value of intimidation, despite having never been a victim of it himself, and knew that his matured body was worth much more than just a couple hundred tons of whatever he wanted to move. He'd seen more than one would-be thief catch sight of him and turn tail. Several times, he'd spotted scampering silhouettes in the jungle that enclosed the Master Emerald's shrine. On one occasion, Knuckles had seen them and had proceeded to hurl a boulder into the clouds nearly a thousand feet overhead—and had then proceeded to make a one-handed catch.

He hoped he wasn't being too presumptuous in accepting that as the reason why the darting shapes had never approached.

Never having been a fan of inflicting misery, he took pride in that sort of painless defense. Knuckles savored it—and would continue to savor it—while it lasted. He knew that while it was a very special thing to be able to take serenity for granted, it was naïve to treat it like something indestructible. Some force or other waited, somewhere, allowing the stalwart peace to last until a fatal chink in its armor was discovered. He kept the spikes on his fists impeccably sharpened for the occasion.

Knuckles cast a reflexive glance up to the summit of the 40-foot-tall monument to his left, where a flash of sunlit green confirmed that the Master Emerald sat in its proper place. Not that there were many in the world who could sneak up on the expert guardian, let alone snatch the huge jewel from under his nose.

"Worried that I'll take something of yours?"

Knuckles whipped around, tearing out the grass under his shoes. He relaxed immediately, though—and felt a little foolish—when he saw the owner of the voice.

"I'm always worried, Rouge."

With a flutter of her wings, the bat glided a few feet to the ground, landing without a whisper. No matter how intensely he strained his ears and focused on her motions, Knuckles could never hear Rouge unless she let herself be heard. As much as it impressed him, it had always annoyed him more, being relatively unaccomplished in stealth himself.

"So what do you want?" Knuckles asked a tad bitingly, not pleased with his reaction to her surprise arrival.

He felt guilty after the words flew from his mouth, but Rouge didn't even seem to notice the less-than-welcoming tone.

She sauntered toward him and replied, "Just a spark of excitement in my life."

"G.U.N.'s assignments aren't doing it for you?"

Rouge sighed. "It's been weeks since I was called in, and that time it was for a conference." She shrugged and shook her head in distaste. "Nothing but politics… Earth-Mobius is just too quiet right now."

"Yeah… Lousy peace," Knuckles muttered sardonically.

"Take it easy, Red," Rouge said, smirking. "I'm not against _that_. I'm just against endless monotony. I know _you_ love that sort of thing, but I need some fun."

Knuckles blinked. "I have plenty of fu— forget it. Anyway, if you're bored, why are you here and not with Shadow or Omega?" It was almost automatic for him to associate the names with one another; they were a team, after all. Why was he disgusted with himself for doing so? The emotion was out of place, to say the least, but… there it was. Even worse, a desire to get off Angel Island suddenly sizzled inside him, somewhere around his lower ribs. He furrowed his brow. Why did he feel so trapped?

Knuckles found that he didn't want to take his eyes from Rouge, either, so he promptly turned away to stare at his reflection and regain his center in the untroubled water.

"Who knows where those guys disappear to?" Rouge strolled into the water's image next to him.

"Hm."

Knuckles noticed a few Chao romping around on the far side of the pool. Squaring his shoulders, he felt the urge to leave the island filter out through his head. He exhaled and smiled as he watched the creatures play.

"Yep, they're cute," Rouge commented.

Knuckles glanced at her and did a (reasonably disguised) double-take. Had he always been that much taller? His eyes wandered to Rouge's feet. No, she _was_ wearing her heels. When he'd last met her, at Eggman's stupid space carnival, they had put her at eyelevel with him. Now, they only put the top of her shoulder at the bottom of his. It was practically bumping against him, too, Knuckles realized.

Edging over a couple inches, he said nothing, still unsure what it was Rouge wanted. She'd mentioned excitement. Somewhat sheepishly, Knuckles considered his routine. On an ordinary day, its bulk consisted of training, eating, and sleeping, all within a few-hundred-foot radius of Mystic Ruin. He went on systematic patrols across the island, of course, but hadn't encountered anything interesting in months. Every once in a while he visited the mainland, but those holidays were fairly uncommon for him. The typical highlight of Knuckles' day didn't amount to any more than an improvement in his training. He maintained a few ongoing personal projects (as precious sources of entertainment), but he certainly wasn't about to disclose them to anyone. As if they'd care anyway.

Excitement of the brand that Rouge undoubtedly searched for had definitely eluded Knuckles lately. He mused that maybe he _should_ spend more time away—and shook his head before such idiotic notions could solidify.

Nonetheless, Knuckles couldn't help but feel obligated to do _something_ worthwhile for her. She'd made the long trip to Angel Island, after all. …For some reason.

"So," he began, lightly tapping the fingers of one hand on the knuckle-spikes of the other, "if G.U.N. hasn't been deploying you anywhere, what have you been keeping yourself busy with?"

"Combat exercises and fitness, for the most part," Rouge answered immediately. "You know how it is. Repetitive stuff."

Knuckles nodded, glad she was speaking a language in which he was fluent. "I don't actually think it's all that repetitive. I treat each session like it's a new battle against a different enemy. Besides, it's kinda hard to find something _too_ mundane when there's a chance you'll be killed each time you do it. Small chance, anyway."

He grinned in spite of himself and subconsciously stretched his arms, which still had a phantom of stiffness in them from a near-lethal training accident a few days earlier.

"Now, what do you do?" Knuckles asked, quite content to keep the conversation going. "Mostly lower-body stuff, right? Like always?"

"Mm-hmm. But really, the secret to all that's in the flexibility."

"Yeah?" Knuckles was grudgingly curious. He'd developed his own flexibility over the years, but it had been an arduous process; he hadn't been born an acrobat.

Rouge swung her right leg up in a leisurely kicking motion, then wide out to the side—far wider than Knuckles could move his—then rotated it straight up, bringing it in front of her face. Her heel jutted into the air.

"Nice balance," Knuckles remarked.

Rouge raised her eyebrows. "High praise from the almighty warrior." Appearing almost thoughtful for a moment, she added, "It hurts right here occasionally." She massaged the underside of her leg.

Knuckles concealed a gulp as warmth flooded his cheeks. "…Definitely useful in battle. Yep."

He was dismayed to see that the group of Chao had migrated elsewhere. Before he could lock his eyes onto another innocuous target, Rouge put her leg out to the side again.

"If you wanna nail that _devastating_ range of motion," she explained, "you need to be loose at the _source_ of the motion."

Rouge waved a hand across her pelvic area, while her eyes never strayed from Knuckles' blushing face.

Knuckles' heart hammered on the inside of his chest like it was clamoring for release. He wished he could set the unruly organ free.

Outwardly, the echidna made a very valiant effort to be the model of purely academic interest. Not easy with the traitorous tinge in his cheeks.

"I know you know your stuff, Rouge."

He regarded himself in the water again—while forcedly avoiding Rouge's reflection.

"But hey," she said, lowering her leg and stepping closer to Knuckles. "Who am I to lecture you on combat exercises? I can tell you know what you're doing."

Knuckles glanced at her, unable to tell whether she was being sarcastic or not. Perhaps he was imagining it, but her pupils seemed glassy and a little dilated. He looked again, with what he hoped was a mask of defiance. Hardly aware of it, he kept gazing at—into—them.

The corners of Rouge's mouth crept into a small smile; she blinked, slowly. Knuckles blinked a second later.

"…I appreciate the compliment, Rouge. Thanks." Knuckles figured it probably wasn't the most graceful backpedal to his original train of thought, but at least the discussion could return to a more comfortable, comprehensible level.

"Mm-hmm," Rouge hummed with a smirk that wafted satisfaction into the air.

Knuckles took another peek at the Master Emerald, perched atop its shrine. Why was he even worried? It had been a long time since Rouge (or anyone else familiar) had posed a real threat to its security.

A deep rumble sounded, vaguely enough to have come from far beyond the island. With a flap of her wings, Rouge lifted into the air. She rose above the surrounding tree-line and hovered for a few seconds, turning in all directions, before descending back to the earth.

"Storm's coming from the… west, I think," she reported, hitching a thumb over her shoulder as her feet touched down. "Looks nasty."

Well, Knuckles _had_ been looking forward to a little grub after the morning's training.

"Huh…" he pondered. "Time to hunker down, then."

"I bet you've been through worse."

"Probably."

"So what's the drill? Hide out under a tree or something?" Rouge eyed a nearby cluster of palm trees with a peculiar expression, maybe a mixture of disapproval and something else that Knuckles couldn't identify in the frown lines of her face. He didn't know why he cared; more than likely, the prospect of roughing it just made her cringe.

"The drill is to keep Angel Island and its inhabitants safe," Knuckles corrected.

"And the Emerald?"

"The Master Emerald's getting buried 'til the storm passes."

Rouge cocked an eyebrow and tilted her head questioningly. "I always thought it would make a decent lightning rod."

"Yeah, and a _really_ good conductor," Knuckles said, shaking his head. "…Not a fun discovery."

Rouge conceded the point with a nod. She gazed down at the ground like she was studying a bug that she'd seen.

Knuckles tapped his chin. "Could you tell how far away the storm was? Didn't sound too close."

"Maybe… 10 miles," Rouge guessed.

"There's a chance it'll miss, then."

"It's big—like, a third of the horizon," Rouge told him dubiously.

"Whoa. Well, Angel's been side-swept by big storms before and avoided most of the damage. I just need to get a look at it and I'll know where it's heading and how nasty it's really gonna be. This is the worst place on Earth-Mobius to be hit by bad weather," Knuckles explained. "After you live here for 18 years, you learn to read these things."

"I see." Rouge crossed her arms. "So how do you plan on staying dry?"

Knuckles snorted. "Obviously I don't."

"_Obviously_ you're not worried about pneumonia, with that attitude."

"Hasn't happened yet," Knuckles replied cheerfully. "I think it has something to do with the Emerald. At any rate…"

He jogged over to the base of the shrine and fetched his gloves, which lay on the bottom step of the stone staircase.

"Sorry to run, Rouge," he shrugged, "but I need to go to the island's border and check it out. I'll just let you get on your way—"

"That sounds like a lot of work. I don't mind taking you for a quick flight—" she gestured up to the sky "—to spare you the trouble, but I'm not sure I can lift you…" Rouge put a finger to her lips and narrowed her eyes, partially concealing the strange gleam that came to them. "Let's give it a whirl anyway."

"Rouge, hang on. There's really no point—"

With a gust of impatience that caught Knuckles off-guard, the normally unruffled bat strode around to his backside and snapped, "It won't hurt to try."

"Unless it just wastes ti—" Knuckles froze as she moved in close and grasped him above the thighs.

"Oops," Rouge mumbled a few inches from his ear.

"What's up?" Knuckles inquired, craning his neck around.

He caught a whip of white in his periphery. A moment later, Rouge's gloves dropped onto the grass beside him.

"Ah, _now_ I can get a decent grip."

As Rouge's palms rested on his waist—obviously still having some trouble locating a good handhold—Knuckles regarded them with a certain curiosity. He couldn't recall having actually ever seen her bare forearms. His eyebrows quirked in bemusement. Rouge's hands were utterly _petite_. He supposed that the gloves created an illusion of volume. Or maybe he was just comparing her dainty hands to the two crimson brutes that hung at his sides. Knuckles also observed that her nails were filed into triangular points and painted purple. Then again, the color might've been natural for all he knew.

Rouge shifted her hands upward, from Knuckles' narrow waist to where his brawny upper torso widened. The tips of her nails scraped softly over the skin of his abs and chest; he was sincerely grateful that his only ticklish regions were the bottoms of his feet.

"So can you lift me?" he asked, not completely sure what to expect from the mystifying government agent.

"Let me find something to grab onto here, why don't you?" There was no longer a trace of impatience or annoyance in Rouge's indulgent—almost greedy—voice.

"Might be quicker for me to get my own forecast," Knuckles reminded her, shooting a wry smile behind his back.

Much to Knuckles' sudden discomposure, Rouge pressed right against him, hooking her arms under his. With a flap of leathery wings and a tightening of slender muscles, she rose a foot or so from the ground and jerked to a halt. Knuckles couldn't be sure exactly how hard she was trying. Rouge's bent arms pushed up from under his shoulders, but he didn't feel any lift or even a lightening of his feet. She made a half-stifled noise of exertion, so she must've been putting forth _some_ effort. Knuckles was surprised by how distinctly he could feel her heartbeat, cushioned behind her breasts.

"No luck, huh?" A squeeze of unfamiliar bashfulness held Knuckles' mind as he thought of this girl, who couldn't weigh much more than half what he did, trying to pick him up. Then again, it was Rouge; he'd never exactly treated her too tenderly. But then _again_… Some extra blood was dumped into his face.

Rouge's wings beat faster; Knuckles remained rooted amidst the flurry of wind.

"Well," Rouge said, slowing her tempo after a few fruitless seconds, "I could get you up, but it's not worth working up a sweat."

She settled back to the grass and slowly unclasped her arms from Knuckles' torso, again letting her nails graze him. As she stooped to retrieve her gloves, Knuckles thought he glimpsed a sly grin on her lips.

Another rumble, more decidedly punctuated this time, filtered through the trees.

"So that was pretty pointless," Knuckles observed as he cast his eyes toward the region of the thunder.

"Yeah, guess so," Rouge agreed, replacing her gloves.

"I mean, thanks anyway," Knuckles hastily added, berating the lack of discretion that he always seemed to recognize just after the fact.

If Rouge was offended by his frank assessment, she sure had an effective way of letting it slide off her shoulders. Knuckles stopped himself from recommending that she incorporate more wing exercises into her fitness regimen.

"Alright, I have to go see the storm," he said.

He wriggled his barbed fists into the tensile openings of his gloves and deftly flicked his spikes into the conical compartments. A snug warmth enveloped his hands. The material that the gloves were made of—whatever it was—never cooled down from his body heat. He flexed his fingers, unable to resist a moment's private thrill in the raw strength that crackled from each individual joint. Knuckles was quick to curb his exhilaration, reminding himself that he wasn't walking into some brawl.

He started off in the direction that Rouge had indicated before, then halted mid-step and turned to face the bat, who stood—waiting?—with pursed lips.

"Huh… Station Square's that way, isn't it? Can you get back home?" Knuckles asked, making a careful effort to keep the concern in his voice at a minimum. "I know you're a great flier, but you can't fly through a storm. Especially over water."

Rouge put her hands on her hips and considered. "The city _is_ somewhere over there, isn't it? Hm. I'll just have to go around. What a pain."

"I mean, I don't have a problem with you staying here, but if it hits…" Knuckles grated his teeth uncertainly. "…Angel Island isn't where most people would wanna be."

"Ooh, so tempting," Rouge sighed.

"No need for sarcasm," Knuckles retorted with a frustrated sigh of his own. "If you really think you'll be safer here, spit it out. I'll make accommodations."

"And where—"

"In the Chao shelter, in the mountains, or underground. Your choice," Knuckles answered flatly.

She looked like she might've been seriously debating it, though Knuckles expected that his offer was just being mocked.

"What about you?" Rouge asked.

"What _about_ me?"

"Where are you gonna be riding out the storm in that typical echidna style?" Rouge wondered with a coy grin.

"I told you," Knuckles said. "I have to protect this place. And the animals that live here. I'll be around."

Disappointment quivered across Rouge's features (perplexing Knuckles), but she immediately smoothed it over.

"As luxurious as your 'accommodations' strike me, I think I'll just head back to the club and take a bath," she decided.

"Okay," Knuckles said with a measure of genuine relief. "Just—"

"At least we'll both be getting wet at the same time," Rouge interrupted offhandedly.

An awkward pause. "…I guess that's true."

Knuckles wasn't sure where she was going with that sentiment. He found it a little amusing that she was comparing a bath with a deadly thunderstorm. If she was trying to console him or something, he didn't really think the situation merited it. He himself wasn't feeling disconsolate, after all.

"Anyway," Knuckles continued, "just steer clear of this thing on your way back, no matter how far around you have to go. _Don't cut through it_."

"But Knuckie," Rouge moaned, leaning on Knuckles' arm (he rolled his eyes), "it's such a long way."

"Rouge…"

"Mmm… Well!" she exclaimed with a smirk. "If you're that worried, I have no choice!" She certainly seemed to be in fine spirits.

Knuckles glanced sideways at her eyes—those glowing blue orbs!—less than three feet from his face.

"Just pay attention to the crosswind and try not to be a moron," he muttered, imperceptibly bracing himself for a kick, either physical or verbal.

Rouge eased off of him.

"This island is fairly charming," she declared.

Knuckles arched an eyebrow, waiting.

"Hard to believe, considering the local management."

"Truth!" Knuckles said with a smile and a sagely nod. "Those Chao sure are a sleazy bunch of rascals, aren't they?"

Rouge tittered, but then some kind of invisible weight dragged her chin down. "How crazy does it get up here during rough weather?"

Knuckles stooped over to check that his shoes were buckled properly. "Assuming that 'rough' actually means '_rough_' in your vocabulary—and not just a little rain—it gets pretty wild." He stood, furrowing his brow. "Imagine being stuck on a giant lightning rod that's inside a giant lightning factory, flammable things all around you, blind most of the time, usually wet, sometimes freezing, never knowing when the hail's gonna start pounding you or a tornado's gonna get dropped on your head."

Rouge stared blankly. "I have to admit, it never really crossed my mind…"

"I mean, that's the worst-case scenario," Knuckles clarified. "Luckily, storms like that are pretty rare here. Haven't even seen one in eight months or so. Then you showed up." He snickered. "You're a regular omen, Rouge."

Of course he was joking, but the troubled mist that entered Rouge's eyes suggested otherwise, to Knuckles' astonishment. A practical girl like her couldn't _honestly_ buy into superstition like that, could she? And even if she did, Knuckles knew firsthand how tough her shell was. It shouldn't have cracked under a harmless little dig—Rouge ought to be used to it!

She lifted from the grass.

"You better hurry and check on the storm." In an apparent attempt to return to the mood of the previous minute, which had so swiftly evaporated, Rouge added, "And don't stay out in the rain _too_ long, or you might get clean."

Despite Rouge's stab at humor, Knuckles noticed that her ears drooped slightly, folding down at the tips. He was shocked that his heart swelled, almost painfully, with sympathy upon seeing such a delicate and uncontrived symptom of unhappiness from his aggressive ex-rival; he was also mystified as to its cause.

And he wanted to rip his own tongue out for not having kept the omen jibe inside his head.

With heavy strokes of her wings, Rouge drifted up and away in silence, vanishing over the tree-line just as the skyward percussion sounded for a third time. He noticed that she was heading straight toward the source of the thunder.

Knuckles inhaled, meaning to blast a final word of warning at her departing form, but he restrained himself and blasted resigned air out of his mouth instead. He mulled over the exchange of the past minutes and grimaced at how condescending he'd acted toward Rouge. She was anything but helpless.

On an impulse, Knuckles dashed up the steps of the Master Emerald's shrine and hoisted the gem from its throne. Indignation pattered lightly on his forehead as he leaped off the stone dais. Knuckles recognized this subtle resistance as the Emerald's always-prevalent will to stay in place. Its purpose was to control the Chaos Emeralds; obviously it was predisposed toward constancy. Landing on the grass with a thump, he imparted a mental apology to the Emerald. They had, however, been through the same scenario dozens of times over the years, so he was sure that some mild exasperation was conveyed as well.

Knuckles approached a half-buried boulder several yards behind the altar. He set the Emerald down a short distance away, then went and pulled the boulder effortlessly—a bit _too_ effortlessly, that is—from the soil. Knuckles tossed it over by the Emerald, flexed his shoulders, and plunged into the now-empty dirt basin.

So fluid and rapid were Knuckles' plowing motions that the dirt seemed to melt around him. 30 feet and three seconds later, one of his palms smacked against the rock slab that signaled the bottom of the pit—not that it technically qualified as a pit just yet. Only the top few feet of soil had been launched out of the dig path; the rest (now rushing down from above the soles of his shoes) would need to be likewise exhumed.

And that was where the rock would come in. An instant after his glove made contact with it, Knuckles jabbed the other fist into the dirt near his head, applying a bit of power to shove the granules apart and outward. Without breaking momentum, he rolled off the flat surface of the rock and into the newly hollowed space to the side of the main drag. It was a pleasant sensation when his ankles swished through the leading powder of the avalanche. Strangely fluffy.

Knuckles came out of his roll into a tight crouch. There was hardly any maneuvering room to speak of amidst the consuming dirt, but he managed to twist around so that he was facing the dig site, close his eyes, and put both hands over his nose just as the earthy deluge spilled into the nook. With a sigh, the soil encased him.

Once it had settled, Knuckles wasted no time in swiping aside the dirt in front of him; his hands tunneled around, searching for the rim of that rock. After a few moments' blind probing, one of his spikes connected with it. He leaned into the damp mass, keeping his eyelids squeezed, his lips clamped, and his nostrils inhaling gently. The hand that had found the stone slid down its border and wedged beneath. The other hand thrust ahead through the earth to join its counterpart. Together, the gloved appendages tilted the two-inch slab up. Knuckles stiffened his fingers, tightened his shoulders, and raised the rock—as well as the 15 feet or so of soil above it—from the undisturbed dirt that it rested upon. He pressed its opposite end firmly against the far wall of the pit to prevent it from unbalancing.

The challenge had nothing to do with his upper body, to which the weight of the rock plate and dirt load was less than negligible. It was an issue of mobility in the none-too-spacious underground quarters. Even so, the echidna had done this many times before; he had it down to a science. He bowed his head and began to shuffle forward, moving his feet in small, skidding bursts to kick through the soil. As his arms folded at the elbow, he held his fingers and wrists carefully steady. When the clinging soil finally crumbled off him, Knuckles squatted almost directly below the rock he was keeping aloft. He extended his arms again, sliding them along its rough underside until his palms were centered on it.

Good. The tricky part was over.

He lifted the slab higher, allowing himself to sidle underneath it. The loose dirt trapped safely on top of the rock, Knuckles bobbed his thighs for a few moments to stretch the cramped muscles. With a practiced explosion of movement, he jumped, just forcefully enough to displace the stuff without scattering it everywhere on the ground above.

In four hops of consecutively increasing height, the echidna-powered freight elevator had done its job. Knuckles listened; he heard intermittent pattering on the rock overhead as wispy lines of soil dribbled from the accumulated piles around the mouth of the pit.

Knuckles shifted backwards in the tunnel and lowered his stone platter to the floor, tipping the remaining dirt into the alcove next to him. He stepped onto the rock to let it slide flat.

Yards above, the opening glowed white as he squinted at it. A pale light coated the curving surface of the shaft. His vision regained, Knuckles could see how nicely it had been unclogged. Wall looked compact, no large outcroppings, circular along its length… He tapped an approving foot on the rock slab, then crouched and sprang toward the top.

Knuckles was gratified when his feet cleared the dirt mounds. When he'd last attempted this leap, eight months earlier, he'd clipped the lip of the hole as he emerged. The haphazard cartwheel of a recovery might've looked nimble enough, but it had also reminded him that he was no natural high jumper. Evidently, the extra leg routines he'd been doing since then were paying some dividends.

He squeezed his quills together at the peak of his ascent. They fanned outwards from around his neck as air was caught in their collective parachute effect. Knuckles immediately flicked his gaze around, ready to launch himself at the first glimpse of wings or blue eyes or big ears or… the Master Emerald peacefully sitting where he'd left it 30 seconds ago. His jaw unclenched as he sailed over the sizeable heaps of earth surrounding the pit. He dropped onto the grass next to the gem, scooped it up, and marched back through the piles.

Small dirt swirls brushed against Knuckles' ankles as a nippy breeze cruised its way through. He knew that if he planned to get some kind of reading on the incoming storm, he needed to be efficient. Well, depositing the Emerald at the bottom of the shaft would be a quick enough and simple enough matter.

But then it would be vulnerable to anything that may have been watching.

Squeezing his quills again, Knuckles hopped into the hole and drifted down, the Emerald poised in one hand over his head. Its weight required that he concentrate this time in order to maintain his quills' rigid posture. Nevertheless, he made sure to mark the direction of the shrine before he went below ground-level.

As the tunnel led away from the sunlight, the Emerald's inner radiance seemed to amplify. Floating down through the murky blend of green and brown, Knuckles was—as happened every time he did this—struck by the similarity to being underwater.

He fixed his eyes on the portion of dirt wall aligned with the altar. When it felt like he'd traveled halfway down the hole, Knuckles poked the spikes on his free hand into the soil. They carved along for a few feet, leaving vertical tracks, before knocking against an unyielding round surface covered by half an inch of earth. He retracted his arm, waited as he sank a foot or two lower, then snapped his palm into the wall.

The smooth layer of dirt disintegrated as the boulder behind it went bounding away—along a newly exposed passage branching off perpendicularly from the straight chute down which Knuckles was descending.

What followed was a decent feat of agility as Knuckles pulled his dangling legs in close to his gut and dropped onto the rim of the side-tunnel in a crouch, the Master Emerald just fitting into the space above his head. He let the Emerald tumble out of his hand so that it landed in front of him on its flat top. His ankles flexed and heaved his weight forward, getting it off the side-tunnel's precarious edge.

Relaxing his quills, Knuckles paused for a moment to listen. In all likelihood, he wouldn't have heard Rouge anyway, but he was confident that she wasn't nearby. Even if she was, just _let_ her try to find the Emerald at the bottom of the hole. Knuckles pushed the gem against the boulder and pushed them both down the dirt corridor, smirking as he pictured Rouge drilling her way through the island in an effort to locate the Emerald. Total nonsense, of course. He'd seen her dig before—she wouldn't make it 20 feet.  
>After a 10-second trundle, open space—indicated by the sudden absence of green light on the adjacent soil—appeared around the boulder as the passage widened. Knuckles and his cargo entered an elliptical cul-de-sac. The boulder rolled ahead until it sat against the far end; butted up next to it, the Emerald was roughly centered in the oval area. He gave the Emerald a pat, then carted the boulder around it, along the bending wall and back through the tunnel.<p>

The Emerald's glow fading behind him, Knuckles ran one hand along the right-side wall as he kept the rock rolling with the other. The dirt suddenly vanished from under the echidna's fingers. Thanks to the empty space, he stepped around to the front of the boulder and dragged it backwards until he reached the mouth of the passage. Balancing on its edge, he kept shifting the boulder until he felt it settle into the slight depression that it had started in.

Satisfied, Knuckles dropped 10 feet down to the pit's stone floor and jumped back up to the surface. As soon as his shoes hit the earth above, he hurried over to the altar (20 feet beneath which now sat the Master Emerald) and grabbed a flat stone leaning against it.

Like the stone slab at the bottom of the hole, the three-inch-thick rock sheet—meticulously chiseled into a five-foot square—served as an effective plow. In less than a minute, all but a fine layer of crumbs had been scraped from the ground and shoved into the tunnel from which it had come. Knuckles replaced his plow-stone next to the shrine, then replaced the boulder in the mouth of the pit. When he jammed it down to compact the loose mass of soil underneath, it sank a couple inches lower than it had been when he'd removed it. Eventually he'd need more dirt or a bigger rock.

Anything but helpless…

Knuckles hadn't intended to bury the rather finicky Master Emerald until he was sure that it was necessary, but the behavior of a certain bat had persuaded him into proactivity. Judging by the brisk wind that had begun to blow in the two minutes since he'd made the decision, it was going to be proven moot.

Still torn between compassion and suspicion over Rouge's unusual distress, Knuckles peered around, keen eyes scanning for anything out of place in his surroundings.

Nothing, as far as he could tell.

Thanks to the trick tunnel, the Emerald should be secure while he was away, even if someone had been watching him from a hidden vantage point. Knuckles grinned and clapped his hands together to get rid of the dirt clumps.

Not so easy to get rid of, however, was an image of Rouge's head—drooping ears included—stubbornly planted in his mind.

He turned and sprinted in the direction of the storm, rushing past the altar and away from Mystic Ruin altogether. Most of the soil that was meshed into his fur jolted off with the first few pounding strides. Again, he found himself assailed by those pityingly attractive ears, those _eyes_—

Knuckles growled and picked up the pace, forcing himself to focus on his own movements as he sped through the hectic growth. Barely realizing it, he experienced a curious double-vision: Rouge's face clung to the foreground of his sight, like a spider web draped almost imperceptibly over his eyes, dimming the view of the jungle behind it.

Why was he hung up on that bat?

Sheesh. The company he let himself keep…

But he _had_ enjoyed her company…

Sparks flashed as Knuckles struck his fist-spikes together in frustration and, with a gnashing of fangs, exiled Rouge from his mind.

As had always been the case with the echidna, he separated his lingering emotions from his indomitable initiative.


End file.
